


Rumor Has Them

by Raaj



Category: Persona 5
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/M, Gen, Inspired by the idea from p2 of rumors changing reality, Memory Alteration, one-sided Haru/Ren
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-21
Updated: 2019-07-21
Packaged: 2020-07-10 04:53:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,009
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19900135
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Raaj/pseuds/Raaj
Summary: The people stopped believing in the Thieves, but they didn't vanish.  After all, they were still known to others by their public personas.Well...somewhat known.  Reputations don't always match reality, after all.Weeks before graduation, Haru reaches out to the aloof student council president to arrange the Gardening Club's matters, then has a talk with two delinquents who keep sneaking up to the rooftop garden to make out with each other.  Despite their noisiness, everything seems to be going smoothly enough for the end of the school year.  Yet Haru can't help feeling that she's forgetting something.





	Rumor Has Them

**Author's Note:**

> This is actually a fairly old file on my computer--about a year old I think--but p5r made me a bit nostalgic for the idea since there's the similarity of things being 'not quite right', so after rereading it, I figured I'd clean it up and post it.

_Have you ever looked at someone and thought, "I'm sure we were good friends in another life"?_

_I was convinced so many times. It must have been my loneliness after Father passed away._

* * *

She had asked for a meeting with the student council president today. It was an important errand to get out of the way before the school year was over. She was the sole member of the Gardening club, and once she was gone, there would be no club. Ordinarily, they'd most likely store all the supplies away for a few years, on the off-chance that the club was revived or another club found a use for them. But the living components, the plants and the soil? They needed care they might not get. She'd worked hard on them during her time at Shujin, and she didn't want to see them tossed away. They were hers.

For as much as she presumably owned, so little felt like it was actually hers. But since school funds had been used to purchase the supplies--her father wouldn't have approved of the purchases--she couldn't simply take the fruits of her labor. She needed to arrange a deal.

She knocked softly on the door to the council room.

"Come in." When she looked in, Makoto was sitting at the table in the center of the small room, as composed as ever, looking at her with a polite smile.

"Hello, Mako-chan!"

The smile shrank, nearly disappearing altogether, and Haru felt a chill down her back. Oh... why had she done that? "I don't think we're close enough for nicknames, Okumura-san."

Of course they weren't. They might both be in the same year, but they weren't even in the same class, let alone friends. She wasn't sure Makoto Niijima was friends with anyone. "I'm sorry. I--I just think your name is very pretty."

Makoto herself was very pretty, too, but at the moment she was staring flatly at Haru, the question inaudible yet clear: 'So you felt the need to truncate it?' Haru could feel herself starting to fidget under the gaze of those red eyes when they suddenly flicked to the small stack of papers sitting on the table. The gardener let out a silent breath of relief as Makoto picked them up, tapping their bottom edge against the table to straighten them out. "Let's stick to proper names for now, please. Now, you had a request concerning the Gardening Club, correct?"

"Yes, that's right."

"Please, have a seat."

Despite that awkward start, the rest of the meeting went smoothly enough. There were, at least, no further lapses in formality out loud, and Makoto agreed that it was perfectly reasonable for her to take all of the Gardening Club's things--pots, tools, soil, plants and all--so long as she reimbursed the school for the initial costs, which had been paid out of the funds for club activities.

Haru tried to make some small chat after that, but Makoto said that with both of them graduating soon, they each had a lot to do, and the message couldn't have been any clearer that she felt Haru was being a nuisance.

After closing the sliding door behind her, the young heiress looked up at the ceiling and sighed.

"Hey, Haru-chan. Did the robot give you a hard time?" It was said in an undertone by one of her classmates, Akio, a gangly boy who towered over her.

"Please don't call her that," Haru asked, smiling to hide her wince. Just why had she thought she could get away with calling the student council president "Mako-chan"? Everyone knew how she was. Cold and distant, she wouldn't be interested in making friends, only in finalizing her accomplishments so that she could start university with all the highest recommendations. Really, with the third-years just about to leave high school for their lives beyond, whether it was to university or on other paths, few of them would be interested in making new friends.

But she could picture Makoto with an unguarded, sincere smile so easily. She could imagine them meeting up at a cafe for coffee, chatting and laughing. It really felt like they had been friends once, even though she knew that was impossible. Her family had moved as her father raised the company back to prosperity after her grandfather's passing and then further, his own status rising along with it; Shujin was the only school she'd attended in the area. She and Makoto had never been friends in high school, and the odds of them having attended a previous school together were astronomically low. So they couldn't have been friends before.

Even more impossible were the second-years who gave her that same feeling. Ren Amamiya and Ann Takamaki were already on the rooftop when she came up to tend to the plants. She could tell they were present from the moans sounding behind the stairwell, and this time she sighed in a small bit of aggravation. "Hello Ann-chan, Ren-kun."

"Hi, Haru!" Ann called back; the younger girl was always warm in her greetings, and she'd occasionally make small talk, but she had never shown much interest in pursuing friendship, either. In the next moment, she sounded quite distracted: "Oh, oh, _Ren_ \--" Another moan, thankfully cut off, but Haru had an all-too vivid mental image of what Shujin Academy's most infamous couple was doing on the other side of the stairwell.

Ren's greeting was long-delayed, but Haru knew it would come after he was done ravishing Ann. Sure enough: "Hello, Okumura." Low and tinged with sarcasm. He'd told her she could call him whatever she liked. He never used her given name.

"I believe I told you the roof is off-limits to people outside the Gardening Club."

"I thought we were honorary members by now." Ren appeared around the corner adjusting the last button on his blazer and pushing his glasses back up his nose, his hair wilder than usual.

"We totally should be, with how often we come up here," Ann added. She was still buttoning her blouse back up as she came around, seeming to not mind that Haru had a good view of her bra and a heart-shaped necklace dangling in her cleavage before the brunette forced her eyes back to her garden. Though she had to look at Ann again when the blonde knelt down by her. Thankfully with everything covered. "You're not going to tell on us, right?"

They were definitely not her friends. If her father hadn't already died of cardiac arrest, he might have to hear she was keeping company with two delinquents, one of whom was on probation for assault. They were not her friends. They just used the rooftop to hide whenever they wanted to make out, and Ren made a habit of stealing her crops. "...I won't tell."

"You're a weird one," Ren said, and in plain sight, right in front of her, he snapped a ripe tomato off its vine before sitting next to Ann. The first time he'd done it, Haru had gotten well and truly cross with him, and in response he'd told her about how he couldn't eat well where he lived.

It was undoubtedly a sob story he liked to sell when he was in trouble. He'd been transferred because of his assault conviction; he must have a probation officer or guardian of some sort. Wouldn't they ensure he was being properly cared for?

Yet he did look too pale sometimes. And he also looked like someone she'd known for a little while. A boy who had been extraordinarily kind to her after her father had died.

She let Ren keep stealing her tomatoes and carrots. Someone might as well eat them, anyway, and she couldn't exactly sell them when they had a strange taste, even if they were somehow refreshing at the same time. "I suppose I am."

She had no reason to love a delinquent like Ren Amamiya. And yet, and yet, and yet...

The underclassman caught her eye and smirked. "Are you daydreaming, Okumura, or is my face just that dreamy?"

Oh dear. Haru felt her face flush as Ann scowled and hip-checked the laughing boy. "You're sooo full of yourself."

"I--I was daydreaming, a little," Haru admitted, because it was true, and because conversation with Ren Amamiya already felt like being led on a waltz through a minefield at times. If he knew about her nonsensical feelings for him, it would surely only get worse. "It's been a very strange year, and now it's about to end."

"...I'm sorry about your father, Haru," Ann said. "It must be hard for you."

The words were rote, phrases Haru had heard dozens of times already. And yet they sounded so sincere coming from Ann, and were more meaningful than anything she could remember Ann saying to her before. The sentiment made her eyes widen before the heiress shook her head. "Thank you...but that's not what I was thinking of. I'm ashamed to admit it, but Father and I had not been close in years, and sometimes I think I miss what might have been more than I actually miss him. It's... even before his passing, this school year was strange. It all blurs together, and I feel as though things should be different. I suppose I'm simply dissatisfied with how it's ending."

"It's kind of funny, but...same here?" Ann said. "I keep thinking I did more than I actually have. Maybe some part of me thinks I should have done more." She shrugged. "Well, whatever. Too late now."

"Should have done more with me," Ren said, waggling his eyebrows even as Ann elbowed him.

"Shut up! You're the one counting down days until you leave."

He caught her elbow and pulled her closer. "Counting down until the end of this lousy probation," he told her. "Counting down until that old geezer stops breathing coffee fumes down my neck. And _then_ \--" He reached under the collar of Ann's uniform, confusing Haru for a moment until she saw a flash of gold and realized he was playing with the chain of Ann's necklace. She wore it under her uniform? "--I'll be counting down the days until I'm done with high school. When I can tell my folks to fuck off and come straight back to you."

Haru averted her eyes as Ann giggled and leaned into Ren, feeling both embarrassed and jealous. "You two... don't ever stop, do you...?" Ann and Ren weren't infamous as a couple just for their reputations as delinquents; they flaunted their relationship for all to see. Other students speculated it was a display on Ren's part to make it clear Ann was now off-limits--everyone knew she'd been with others before him--but when he acted like this with only Haru to witness, it felt genuine. Unabashedly crass, but sincere. Infinitely more appealing than her ex-fiance's two-faced manner of being civil in public and cruel in private. ...But she already knew this line of thought was mere fantasy. If Ren was as sincere as she hoped, this side of him was reserved for only Ann. He had a myriad of flaws anyway, evident by his reputation, and he was leaving soon.

"Nope," Ren said, smirking. "C'mon, Ann. Let's give Okumura some space."

"Bye, Haru!" Ann said with her usual cheer. "We should go on another date, Ren. A _real_ date. Make the most of these last few weeks..."

Her voice trailed away as the couple left via the stairwell. Haru stared down at her garden, patting the knees of her gym uniform as she thought.

Last few weeks...last few weeks... The end of the school year was coming so soon. Ren was leaving soon, as was Makoto. And she would be leaving Shujin herself, of course.

Why...did thinking about that make her feel restless? She'd arranged the matter of her plants in a satisfactory manner, she thought, and yet there was still the unsettling feeling she'd left something undone.


End file.
